OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abjua | Wednesday 12.45pm
FIFTEEN people have been killed in unrest between Muslims and Christians which broke out earlier this week in the far northeast of Nigeria.
At least 15 people died in the clashes which erupted over plans to locate a church in a Muslim-dominated area of northern Borno State.
On Tuesday, state officials confirmed that four churches and two mosques were burned down and that several people had been injured in the clashes but refused to comment on reports of some deaths.
A report in the Guardian newspaper said at least 15 people had been killed and thousands had fled the affected area of Damboa, Borno State. Tthe dispute erupted after the piece of land was allegedly sold to a Christian group under the agreement that no church would be built on the land but the agreement was breached.
Muslim youths then burned down the new church and attacked police who came to try to quell the unrest, the paper said. The incident is just the latest in a string of incidents of unrest in Nigeria highlighting religious and ethnic strains in the country. Nigeria has been shaken in recent weeks by a series of outbursts of bloody unrest following the adoption by three northern states of the strict Islamic legal code or Sharia.
Borno State has so far not made its position on the Sharia issue public. So far, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has refused to come down resolutely on the issue, saying Sharia punishments are unconstitutional but declining to take the matter to the country’s Supreme Court.